Brooks Kellogg sentenced to 6 years for murder-for-hire plot

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Steamboat Springs  Part-time Steamboat Springs resident and developer Brooks Kellogg was sentenced to six years in prison Thursday for hiring someone to kill a former business partner, a crime the judge said was about “greed with a capital G.”

Kellogg, 72, also was ordered to pay a $100,000 fine.

The U.S. probation department had recommended a fine of $15,000, based on financial documents Kellogg submitted to the court that showed he had no income and that he is about $38 million in debt. But U.S. District Judge Christine Arguello said she didn’t think Kellogg was accurately reporting his assets.

Kellogg was arrested in October after FBI agents said he flew to Denver and paid an undercover agent he thought was a hit man $2,000 to kill Steven Bunyard. Kellogg owed Bunyard $2.5 million as part of a legal settlement over Chadwick Estates, a Steamboat development.

Bunyard told Arguello today that the threat on his life had been deeply disturbing to him and his family. He described Kellogg as a bully who had made previous threats against him.

“This is essentially a sociopath driven by power, driven by greed, and is as arrogant as any man I’ve ever encountered,” he said.

Kellogg pleaded guilty in April to one count of traveling across state lines with the intent that a murder be committed.

Asked whether he would like to make a statement, Kellogg said only, “I’m tempted to but I think I’ll pass.”

Pozner noted Kellogg had no criminal record and said his life up to the time of the crime “continuously was about the betterment of society.”